Wednesday, March 30, 2016

March Secret Agent #17

TITLE: RESILIENCE
GENRE: YA - YA Fantasy

Tranquil like Riley’s orchard.
A striking observance to Yafa as she hurried home. Because she wasn’t in her beloved orchard, and the displaced quiet in the heart of the city marketplace sounded eerie to her ears.

No merchants milled about as was typical in Hatovdon - entering and exiting with their exciting goods to share with the market. A concrete proof, to her, that her past utterances weren’t just the fears of a thoughtless girl with too big of an imagination.

She paused at a crossroad to peek over her shoulder at the city gates.

Closed.
The large wooden doors stood bolted in place, seeming an insurmountable obstacle for all who would desire to enter. As always, soldiers paced back and forth along the top of the wall, but today, they seemed motivated by some unknown purpose. Something in the distance held their attention. Something troubling.

She wished for a moment she could discern the words of their anxious whispers, and see from their view. How magnificent it must be to see over the wall. Surely the other side would be more interesting than what went on inside.

Continuing forward, she chastised herself for her pauses. She moved faster, gripping her basket of bread close to her body and hoping her mother wouldn’t be angry at her tardiness. Her rush to get inside her small home caused a loud bang as the door hit the edge of the stone wall upon her entrance.
An angry yell erupted from the side of the room.

6 comments:

You may want to rethink moving your first sentence further down, as not only does the first sentence not make sense to the reader yet (of course not, it's the first sentence) but it is not compelling.

Also, I'm not entirely sure what's going on here. We have a character who desires to be in an orchard, because it's tranquil. Then she(?) wanders around, sees guards like always, but something has their attention. And then you don't describe WHY she knows/feels/sees/hears why their attentions are diverted and why that is out of the ordinary. For example, you can say, the guards are stationed, like always, at the top of the fence, but the guns strapped across their backs is something I haven't seen.. blah blah.

I think you have a solid beginning, but I would try to focus on description a bit more and showing rather than telling. Good luck.

I tend to agree with Kate about the opening. Maybe: The displaced quiet in the heart of the city marketplace sounded eerie to Yafa's ears. Unless the orchard has some significance to the story later, it doesn't quite work to mention here.

Nitpicky, but I would delete "exciting" in the 3rd paragraph, both because it's so close to "exiting" in that sentence and it's unnecessary.

"A concrete proof, to her, that her past utterances weren’t just the fears of a thoughtless girl with too big of an imagination." You're referring to something here that the reader doesn't have enough info about since we have no idea what her past utterances might have been. Is she some kind of prophetess or just more suspicious of some impending danger than the other citizens-there's no way to make a judgment here.

I think perhaps you should consider moving her thoughts about wanting to see beyond the gates to before she notices the guards' changed behavior and worries about what they see that troubles them (to be more logical).

Maybe in the end you can be more clear that she shrugs off purposefully worrying about what's out in the world because she's got enough trouble at home. Otherwise, she seems to think something imminent is happening, but instead she's worried about being late, which shouldn't be a big deal compared to whatever the soldiers are concerned about.

There's some solid material here and I'd like to know more about Yafa, though, so I'd read on.

I agree with the other commentators. There is a lot of telling, and as a reader, I get she likes being in an orchard, but I don't know what that has to do with the soldiers on the wall and the city gates closed. Also, I have a hard time imagining a YA saying "utterance".

The last paragraph especially is a good spot to bring the reader into the MC. Have her talk to us through internal monologue: Stop dawdling. I'm already late. Gotta get home before Mom loses it. Anyway, just a few thoughts.

Try reading the passage out loud, or have someone else read it. It often helps to hear the spots that need tweaking.

I'd recommend reading this out loud. Some of the lines feel awkward (like the second one - I think it's missing a subject), and others feel overwritten, particularly this one:She wished for a moment she could discern the words of their anxious whispers, and see from their view.

Because I don't know the character, or her situation, the first few paragraphs feel a bit flat for me. I like the idea above of starting with the last paragraph and building up from there. It gives you a conflict, a relatable situation (getting trouble for being late) and you can work in more specific world building aspects around that.

This opening is missing some much-needed context. It's always hard to dump the reader into a story, and it's even harder in a fantasy where the world is going to be unfamiliar to your audience. You touch on some world building with the wall, gates, and guards, but I don't think I got enough to get a sense of the setting you've created.

I'm also missing context in more specific ways. As previous commenters have said: I don't know your character's motivation, what her connection to the orchard is, and what her "past utterances" might have been. With those supporting details missing, the opening feels incomplete or hollow.

You have some beautiful sentences here, but you've got to fill out your information to really hook me in.

I realize I'm kind of echoing the other commenters, but I think this has the potential to be a strong opening with some editing. "The displaced quiet in the heart of the city marketplace sounded eerie to Yafa's ears" makes a good opening line, because it tells right away that something is wrong. Then draw us in with other clues, what she is seeing that lets us know all is not well in her world.